What Happened Here?
by Lancer47
Summary: Stargate Command underestimates Willow Rosenberg.
1. Chapter 1

BtVS & Stargate SG-1

in a crossover Fan Fiction

by Lancer47

AKA

STFarnham

**What Happened Here?**

_Author's Notes:_

_The Stargate timeline has been adjusted so that Daniel Jackson is about fifteen years older than Dawn Summers. _

_On the Buffy side, this takes places several years beyond the series finale. _

_Disclaimer: I own it all, every show in Hollywood that's worth owning is mine! All mine! Oh wait, that's in a alternate universe; in this universe I own little more than the contents of my cat's litter box, and that not for long. Stargate SG-1 is owned by people who aren't me. Buffy the Vampire Slayer is owned by Joss Whedon and others, none of whom are me. I derive no income whatsoever from this story. This is distributed under the Creative Commons license, others may play here as long as correct attribution is maintained. No commercial application is allowed or even possible. _

_Rating: T (or PG-13) for a couple of swear words, nothing more._

_Spoilers: Surely anyone reading this has seen all 144 episodes of Buffy at least a half-dozen times, right? Stargate SG-1 up to somewhere around the 7th season._

**Prologue**

A short summer rain had just passed through Colorado Springs, leaving the beautiful afternoon atmosphere clean and refreshed. The sun was halfway between the horizon and twelve o'clock, the light sparkled where it hit the damp ground. Daniel Jackson walked along a sidewalk not far from his apartment, lost in thought. He noticed an outdoor café and decided he could use a break and some coffee, so he turned in and found a table with a view of the mountains. He opened his briefcase and searched though until he found the documents that most concerned him. He knew that General Hammond would be more than a little ticked at him for taking these off-base, but really, there were only a few dozen people in the whole world who could read Sumerian; what were the odds one of them would wander by just as he sat down in a public café?

"_The Goddess of Wind and Fire will release the High Priestess of the Sun from her Royal Obligation when the..."_ Daniel heard a voice from over his shoulder translating from written Sumerian to spoken English on the fly as she read from the photograph in front of him. He looked up in amazement and saw a young woman, a tall California girl with dark waist-length straight hair. She was wearing a white tank top that left her midriff bare while emphasizing her form, a weathered jean jacket, boots that looked expensive and were probably stylish but Daniel wasn't sure, and a short garment that had a name other than skirt or dress that Daniel couldn't remember. She looked to be twenty-something and Daniel thought she was truly beautiful. On top of her stunning physical attributes, she was reading the inscriptions in his photograph as easily as if it were a popular magazine. Daniel was floored. He was also completely and instantly smitten.

"Hi," she said, "my name is Dawn. May I sit here?"

Daniel mumbled incoherently, Dawn took it as an assent.

"May I look at these?" she asked as she picked up the prints without waiting for permission. Daniel looked into her eyes.

"Ooooh, this is so cool. See this part? This is where the high priestess talks about the Slayer of the Night-Fanged Creature. And then she says, _'From beneath you it devours!'_ Emphasis mine. That's a pretty amazing prediction for a tablet that's what, three, maybe four thousand years old?"

Daniel, suddenly getting yanked back to earth, said, "Wait! What? Wait, you can read that? I mean, it's incredible enough that you know Sumerian, but this inscription? Even I haven't been able to translate it, and that's what they pay me for."

"Yep, she switched to the private dialect of the Sisterhood of Watchers. Mere mortal males weren't supposed to be able to read it. It was a secret: a deep, deadly, dark secret."

"She? Why do you assume it was a woman writing this?"

"Because this was written by the High Priestess herself. You can tell by her chop: Nikja." Dawn pointed to the bottom of the tablet.

"Uh, OK. This is news to me, and I am an expert in this field."

"Well, Nikja was a real person. I've translated her works before. And, this was a prophecy. Too bad I didn't know about this a few years ago, it might have saved a lot of trouble. But then again, it might not have helped; in my experience prophecies are rarely helpful before the fact."

"What on Earth are you talking about? And what is the Sisterhood of the Watchers?" asked Daniel with as much dignity as he could muster. Spoiled unfortunately by his accidentally knocking his coffee cup off the table; luckily the splash of hot coffee missed Dawn.

"This prophecy concerns events that have already been concluded, so it won't do any good to worry about it. Still, if you could see your way to mail a copy of this to my friend Rupert Giles, I'm sure he would appreciate it. Oh, and the Sisterhood of the Watchers was taken over by men over the centuries. The men don't care to mention the part about the sisterhood anymore. Although, to be fair, women have been welcomed back in the ranks of Watchers for at least the last century or more."

"Hold on, you're going way too fast for me. First, how is it that you can read dead languages? And Watchers of what?"

"Hey, howza about introducing yourself? I'm Dawn Summers, and you are ..."

"Oh, yeah, I'm Dr. Daniel Jackson."

"Oh! You're a doctor?" asked Dawn as she playfully added a little valley girl to her demeanor, "I've got this bruise on my leg that's not going away. Look!" Dawn swiveled sideways a little to put her knees in Daniel's view. She deliberately put two fingers on the hem of her short skirt and slid the fabric, already a couple of inches above her knee, up another inch, until a bruise on her thigh was exposed to Daniel's view.

Daniel's eyes were riveted on Dawn's legs. He said, "That's a nasty bruise, how did you get it? Umm, but it does look like it's clearing up. You should be all right," and then a thought rose unbidden: _If only you'd pull that skirt a few inches higher—my god, I'm such a pervert! Goddamn but she really turns me on! But she's, what, twenty five? Twenty four, twenty three? I hope!_ _No one would care if I slept with her. Especially since I think she's coming on to me! But she's so young! And she knows Sumerian! And she's so fucking gorgeous! Surely she's at least twenty-one. It looks like that bruise is clearing up. God, if she isn't at least eighteen I deserve to be imprisoned just for my thoughts ..._

Unproductive images followed one after another in an ever-faster spinning circle, an organic infinite loop of thoughts, circling endlessly until Dawn said, "What do you think doctor?" which finally crashed his train of thought with a figurative boot to his head.

"Uh, well, I have advanced degrees in in ancient languages and archeology, but not medicine."

"Oh, oh!" Dawn squealed joyfully, "me too! I have degrees in classical and medieval languages from Oxford, and I'm working on my master's!" Dawn actually bounced in her seat a little.

Daniel, with visions of delectable thighs dancing in his head, asked, "How did you get interested in dead languages?" He marveled that the girl could've made it through three or four years of musty Oxford matriculation and still be capable of squealing with excitement and better yet, that meant she was at least twenty-something.

"That's a long story really, lets just live in the now, for now." Dawn finally let go of her skirt. Daniel was mesmerized by the thin material drifting and floating down Dawn's legs. She stroked her leg deliberately to smooth the hem. He pulled his eyes away just as a waiter walked up to the table. He looked at Daniel with a knowing grin.

To Be Continued


	2. Chapter 2

BtVS & Stargate SG-1

in a crossover Fan Fiction

by Lancer47

AKA

STFarnham

**What Happened Here?**

_See Prologue for Notes and Disclaimer.. _

**Chapter 1**

_**Seven months later:**_

With a grim and worried expression, Colonel Jack O'Neill picked up three ordinary VCR tapes and headed to General Hammond's office. He knocked on the door and walked in.

General Hammond looked up with a frown and said, "Yes Colonel? What is it?" The General noticed Jack's troubled expression.

"General, you remember the backup security system Carter and I installed?"

"Yes, it was nearly too paranoid even for me, so it only covers your office and the conference room. Did you ever extend it to the Gate room?"

"No sir, there was never any time, and we never got it running in my office either."

"So Colonel, what's got your dander up?"

"Every week I check to make certain the system is working properly. I don't watch every tape every week, I couldn't. But every week I fast forward through a few sample hours. This week I couldn't remember checking, but there was a check mark on my calender."

"And the significance of that...?"

"When I check the tapes, I always make a little mark on the calender. There's no other indication of what that check means. This week it was there, but I don't remember putting it there."

"This isn't very interesting Jack. So you don't remember checking some very dull tapes. So what?"

"Well sir, remember that this system is not connected to the computer network and doesn't go through the security office. We put in long fiber optic leads so as not to be affected by short range EMP and so it would be undetectable by local bug detectors."

"Yes," said the General, "security triple checks. Actually, I did approve of that."

"But sir, all our precautions were worthwhile if what these tapes show is real. They are very disturbing, let me show you."

Jack's attitude was starting to worry Hammond. "Cue it up Jack, and sit."

The image came up on the General's TV. They saw a redheaded woman, a dark haired one-eyed man, a short blond woman, and a young brunette woman, sitting at the conference table in the SGC. The room was immediately identifiable to the officers, and they were in the scene along with the rest of the SG-1 team sitting across from the strangers. Hammond didn't know who these people were, even though he was on the tape talking to them.

The redhead was talking to the team and she suddenly waved her hands in an odd pattern. Then the on-screen team all sat still, looking straight ahead without any further interaction with the strangers.

Hammond asked, "Is this tape doctored? These aren't real, are they?"

"Don't know sir, I think they're real. We'll get Carter to look at them. Now watch, and I'll turn up the sound."

"_You sure you're up for this Willow?" asked the blond._

"_I don't know Buffy, I don't want to do this, these people are our friends!" said the redhead._

"_Please Buffy, do we have to do this to all of them? Leave Danny's memory alone, please?" said the youngest of the group with an anguished expression._

General Hammond pushed the pause button, "Why are we just sitting there, all stiff and apparently not aware of the surroundings?"

"Beats me sir. What you see is what I know."

"And who are those people? I've never seen any of these women before, and you'd think I'd remember a man wearing an eye-patch, and yet, there I am, sitting with them at my own conference table."

"All good questions sir, I don't know the answers. But I will find out."

Hammond clicked his remote.

"_Don't cry Dawnie, this is for the best. You know we can't let those NID bastards have another shot at us. You know as careful as the SGC are, that the more they know about us, they more likely the wrong people will find out about slayers, and some of us might end up locked in a lab. This time we were lucky, Faith escaped, but we might not be so lucky next time. And besides, our mission is complete, I just don't see much need for us to stay engaged with the Air Force."_

_The one-eyed man said, "Although I will miss gate-travel. And Andrew will be inconsolable about not being allowed to set foot on another planet."_

The Air Force officers watched as the redhead pulled a bronze crucible out of her bag. She filled it with some grassy substance and put a lump of charcoal in the middle. She tapped the lump and said _'Incindiere!'_ And the lump was suddenly glowing red. She handed small yellow crystals to to her companions and waved her hands around the crucible until a little smoke rose to the ceiling, then she started chanting in a unknown language. After a few minutes, the smoke alarm went off. She glared at it angrily and waved her fingers at it and said, _"Silence! Damned alarums!"_ She paid little attention to sudden silence, merely attached a little chain to the crucible and picked it up. She waved it around and continued her chant for a minute or two. Finally, all the strangers left, the door whispering closed behind them.

The tape wound on for a time. Jack pushed the fast forward. Finally, the figures on the screen appeared to wake up.

On-tape Hammond said,_ "OK, what's on tap for today?"_

And the meeting on tape continued with no mention of their visitors, just ordinary day-to-day concerns.

General Hammond could feel his blood pressure going up as he said, "We've had a serious breach of security, and we have no idea of those people's identities! If it wasn't for your ultra-paranoid backup security system, we never would have known. I've got to call the President ASAP."

"On the other hand, they claimed to be allies. Allies who screwed with our memory," said Jack, "but they are also enemies of the NID and that gives them a very tiny bit of slack. But the implication that they have the power to reach into our heads—well, that's a huge problem. But they were upset with what they had to do to what they considered friends."

"Humph, with friends like that, who needs enemies?"

To Be Continued


	3. Chapter 3

BtVS & Stargate SG-1

in a crossover Fan Fiction

by Lancer47

AKA

STFarnham

**What Happened Here?**

_See Prologue for Notes and Disclaimer._

**Chapter 2**

Jack, Daniel, Carter, Dr. Fraiser, and Teal'c studied the tapes. They were nodding with fatigue, but didn't let that stop them from watching. The tapes were a little disjointed because they only covered the conference room so they only heard parts of some conversations as the subjects passed in and out of the room. There were many references to things that no one could remember, but their alternates on the tape knew about. They got really disturbed when comparing the primary security video of the conference room, with time stamps synchronized, to the backup tapes. The scenes without the strangers were almost exactly alike, except that every reference to the strangers had been edited out and replaced with innocuous phrases. The scenes that had the unknowns in them were entirely different.

Carter said, "The work involved in editing the primary security system is mind-boggling. It would've taken me months, if not years, that's if I could do it at all. But the three tapes we have are all within the last six weeks. Tapes older than that were overwritten—although the lab should be able to pull up some information on them in time. The latest time-stamp is only two days ago. Two days! Two days ago we had coffee with people we don't remember today!"

Daniel looked at the image of Dawn and said, "She is incredible! How does a girl that age learn to translate Sumerian better than me?"

"Yeah," said O'Neil sourly, "and did you notice how that girl patted Daniel's ass? I would have expected our academic friend to jump two feet, but he just patted hers in return, then they both pulled away when the rest of us walked in. What the heck were you thinking, Daniel? Having an affair in the office like that couldn't possibly be a good thing!" Jack shot an exceedingly brief glance towards Colonel Carter.

"How the hell can I know what I was thinking?" Daniel replied, "I can't remember any of it!"

Teal'c said impassively, "I know what you were thinking DanielJackson: _DawnSummers is an acceptable female of child-bearing age._"

"I'm pretty sure that's not precisely what I was thinking."

"Yeah," said Sam wryly, "what with all the blood rushing from your head. I wonder," she mused, "if this could be from an alternate universe."

O'Neill looked thoughtfully at the screen and said, "Only if there is no other explanation. What's that razor thing you're always going on about...?"

"Occam's Razor, which reduces to: Keep it simple!" replied Sam.

"Yes, that's the one. Unless you can think of a way that three tapes managed to flip themselves into our dimension while – no, I can't see it."

Dr. Frasier said, "Did you notice that all those people were wearing SGC badges? They are employee badges, not visitor passes. Can we find some shots that focus on the badges, and then amplify them until we can read the names. That might help."

"Yes, do it Carter."

"Actually sir, I already did. I have a program running right now to render the images with high degrees of interpolation. It should work, but it'll be another hour or two before we start to get results."

"Is it possible for someone to stop your progress by wiping out the master file?"

"No, I made copies, naturally. Of course, that wouldn't help if that red-headed freak waves her magic wand and all the copies go 'poof'."

"You saw a magic wand?"

"No, no, no magic wand. But there might as well have been, what with the crucible, the hand waving, and all that cruft."

To Be Continued


	4. Chapter 4

BtVS & Stargate SG-1

in a crossover Fan Fiction

by Lancer47

AKA

STFarnham

**What Happened Here?**

_See Prologue for Notes and Disclaimer._

**Chapter 3**

"OK, listen up," said Major Carter to the assembled team, "here are the names, and here are the faces to go with them, so far." On the bulletin board at the head of the table various photographs and captions were posted. From top to bottom it read:

Buffy Summers

Dawn Summers

Willow Rosenberg

Xander Harris

Faith NLN (no photograph)

Rupert Giles (no photograph)

"Now, I don't imagine that you'll be greatly surprised when I tell you that our computer database has no record of any of these individuals. But an Internet search found people with these names living in Cleveland, Ohio. The convergence of addresses suggests they are the same as the people on our tapes. But a search through SGC's paper files produced a handwritten record of Dawn Summer's job application. It was from seven months ago. There's a local address."

Colonel O'Neil grabbed the address and said, "Saddle up guys, we're gonna go visiting."

--- ---

SG-1, with Jack driving a black Chevy Suburban, pulled up in front of an unremarkable Colorado Springs apartment complex. It was neither the most expensive nor the cheapest part of town. The buildings were done in Colorado diagonal siding and seemed well maintained and completely ordinary.

O'Neil and Daniel walked up the sidewalk to Number 8 when they were intercepted by a little old lady with a cane.

"Daniel Jackson!" she shouted, "how dare you show your face around here!'

"Um, what's wrong?" asked Daniel, with a nervous look at his team.

"What's wrong, why that poor girl has been crying for two days straight! And it's all your fault, you bounder you!" She made as if to hit him with her cane; Daniel flinched back.

"Uh, is she in now?"

"No, poor Dawnie moved out yesterday. It took all of her sister's help to keep her from breaking down completely. Her and that Wiccan friend."

"Did you say wicked friend?" asked Jack.

"No, Wiccan, as in witch. Although if that isn't wicked then I don't know what is. I don't know what's wrong with being a good Christian, if it was good enough for Jesus it should be good enough for our kids," she said with a pinched mouth.

"If you're talking about Rosenberg, I think she might be Jewish, and besides, Jesus was—oh, never mind."

"Whatever. Look Daniel, I know what you did, so you and your friends aren't welcome. Just gather them up and go."

"What did she say I did? Because really, I don't know what I did."

She peered myopically through her glasses and said, "Typical male. The lot of you should drawn and quartered. She didn't say anything, she was crying too much. It was her sister, Buffy, told me you were unfaithful. She found you canoodling with another woman. That girl thought the world of you Danny boy, she was truly in love with you. And you let her down," she said while waving her cane threateningly.

Jack spoke up, "My name is Colonel Jack O'Neill, and you are...?"

"Mrs. Longbottom."

Jack continued, "We really have to get hold of the Summers sisters. Do you have a forwarding address?"

The old lady looked skeptically at the Colonel. After several long seconds, she decided he was acceptable and said, "Yes, follow me."

--- ---

SG-1 drove away. Sam said, "Well, our so-called 'friends' don't seem to be hiding their tracks particularly well. Except for that screwing with our heads thing."

"Yeah," agreed Jack, "looks like they bet everything on memory loss. Well, that and messing with our computers."

Carter frowned and said, "Yes sir, and I'd _really_ like to know how they did that."

"Don't worry Carter, we will find out. We're on our way to Cleveland to have it out with these people."

Daniel wondered out loud, "I wonder if we should we acquire aluminum lined hats before our showdown."

To Be Continued


	5. Chapter 5

_Note: I've been unable to upload anything to FF for a week now. I finally discovered that it isn't just me, and I found a workaround, although it's a real PITA. So here we are. _

BtVS & Stargate SG-1

in a crossover Fan Fiction

by Lancer47

AKA

STFarnham

**What Happened Here?**

_See Prologue for Notes and Disclaimer._

**Chapter 4**

The doorbell rang. It had five tones that chimed loudly throughout the house.

Willow shouted from the kitchen, "Dawn? Would you get the door please?"

Dawn, moping in the living room, said, "Yeah, OK."

She opened the door and found herself facing Colonel Jack O'Neill. To say she was surprised would be a severe understatement. Then she saw Daniel Jackson and she shot through the door and clamped her arms around his neck.

"DANNY! Oh, Danny, you're back!" She enthusiastically kissed Daniel, who, although a little confused, responded in kind. Even if his head didn't remember her, his body did. And though he wouldn't admit it to anyone but Dawn, he had fallen in love with her all over again just from watching the security tapes.

Buffy came to the door, saw who was on the stoop and said, "Oh crap. That spell never worked before, why should it work now? You might as well come in."

O'Neill, Carter, Jackson, and Teal'c accepted Buffy's invitation with suspicion. Even though their welcome was disarming, they kept their weapons handy. As they sat down in the living room, Willow came in from the kitchen, "Who was it? Oops." She backed out rapidly.

"Willow!" Buffy shouted, "you might as well come in and face the music!"

A disembodied voice from the kitchen said, "Willow's not here anymore."

"Willow!"

"Oh, all right. That damn spell has always been more trouble than it's worth." Willow was a little shamefaced as she sat down opposite the SG-1 team. "So, you got your memories back."

"Actually, no, we haven't. And we're awfully pissed about it."

"But how did you find us?" asked Willow.

"You didn't try very hard to hide your trail. Dawn's neighbor gave us your address. That, and you didn't know about the back-up security cameras in the conference room. Even without the neighbors we had you all identified and located. Bunch of amateurs, aren't you?"

"Back-up cameras? That's cheating!" Willow exclaimed.

"Yeah, like you have a lot of room to talk!" said the Colonel.

Buffy said, "Willow, you might as well break the spell."

Even though Sam Carter couldn't help but snort derisively, she still watched Willow with interest.

Willow reached into a deep pocket and pulled out an object wrapped in black felt. She unwrapped it and placed it on the coffee table. It was a large solid black crystal, almost invisible against the black felt.

Xander walked in and jumped in surprise when he saw their guests, "Oh shit, that spell never works! Do you want me to smash the crystal, Willow?"

"No Xand, it's not necessary." She waved her hand over the felt and intoned, "Release!" The crystal slowly cleared and the SG-1 team sat back with regained memories.

_--Flashback--_

"Welcome to the SGC, that's Stargate Command, and if you didn't know that before today, then you're in for a big shock!" said Colonel O'Neill.

"Ha ha," said Dawn. She was dressed in a conservative suit, very professional looking. She looked like a graduate student with excellent taste; her clothes were understated but in style, looked expensive but weren't. She wore black-framed glasses and her hair was gathered in a pony-tail. Her demeanor practically screamed 'academic'.

"Dr. Jackson," said the Colonel, "would you show Ms. Summers to her office and help her get oriented?"

"Sure Jack," said Daniel.

--- ---

"This is where you will be hanging out," said Daniel as he opened the door to an office, "my office is next door and the archeology lab is down the hall." He pointed to the pile of books on her new desk and added, "These will get you up to speed on the Goa'uld language and the variations of various Earth languages that we have found."

Dawn said with a smile, "Oh goody, more studying."

Dawn buckled down to her work. She impressed Daniel with her studious efforts and by working long hours to get done with her assignments. Off hours they spent a lot of time together, much to the amusement of the others. Several weeks went by when she went to Daniel with a problem.

"Danny boy," she said, "these photographs from P2X-7384 are incomplete. I can't finish the translation until I can see the back of this half-wall."

"Uh, they should be there."

"Well they're not! And this is talking about some kind of hell-world. We really need to know about this, so we can avoid it, if nothing else. Not only that, but the light was bad, the the contrast is so low that deciphering some of these incisions harder than usual. I need to see it in person."

Daniels looked in surprise at his bookish assistant, "You want to go offworld?"

"Well, I don't _want_ to, but I think I _have_ to, if you get my drift. And maybe I want to, also."

"Hmmm, well, it's a fairly quiet world, not particularly dangerous as far as we know, the inhabitants are feudal, all horses and swords and stuff, although usually polite to a fault. And you have completed your Stargate familiarization course. OK, I'll talk to Jack."

To Be Continued


	6. Chapter 6

BtVS & Stargate SG-1

in a crossover Fan Fiction

by Lancer47

AKA

STFarnham

**What Happened Here?**

_See Prologue for Notes and Disclaimer._

**Chapter Five**

SG-1, plus Dawn Summers, assembled in the gate room. They weren't dressed in their usual fatigues, instead they dressed to blend in on a world that was similar to England in the sixteenth century. They wore leather buskins over crude boots, jerkins over linen shirts, some kind of garment that was a combination of trousers and hose that never existed on earth, and hats. Dawn's and Sam's outfits were similar to the men's, apparently women were never second class citizens on P2X-7384. Colonel O'Neill carried a two weapons: a holstered Glock 40 and his trusty FN P-90; Teal'c carried his faithful staff weapon. Sam slung a P-90 around her neck while Daniel made do with an old hunting knife. Dawn confounded everyone with her choice.

"Holy Hannah!" exclaimed Major Carter, "that's a sword!"

With all eyes on her, Dawn, who up to now had successfully carried off the persona of a desk-bound academic, said, "Well, it's historically accurate."

"As long you don't accidentally decapitate anyone, I guess it's OK," said O'Neill.

"You can be certain Jack, that if I decapitate anyone it won't be by accident."

The Colonel said nothing further as he watched Dawn check the hunting knife in her left boot, and what looked like a tent stake in her right. He noted and approved of the standard issue Beretta 9mm holstered on her belt.

Finally, they all slung crude leather packs over their shoulders and trooped through the Stargate.

--- ---

The explorers stumbled out of the gate like drunks but quickly oriented themselves. They were in a wooded dale under a blue sky with a few lazy fat clouds drifting by. As Dawn gazed out at the valley below she wondered if they had ported to Sherwood Forest, it was so much like England she was homesick for Oxford.

"OK people," said O'Neill, "we've got a half-days hike to the site. Let's move out."

Teal'c, taking up the rear, noted with interest that Dawn Summers hiked along the rough trail easily, with little apparent discomfort and no complaints, even though she was a little bowed under by her pack. But something else about her hiking bothered him; it took a little while to figure it out, but he finally realized that she strode along with her sheathed sword in perfect balance: it rarely slapped her leg, she never tripped on it, it never banged against the scenery although it did occasionally brush against things. He came to the inescapable conclusion that she had done this before, or at least had done something similar. Interesting, he thought, there was nothing like this in her file. He wondered if her file was complete.

--- ---

They got to their destination by mid-afternoon and made a crude camp outside an abandoned stone structure. At first glance, Dawn wanted to call it a 'castle', but it was really too small to be called by that grand a word. It was built like a castle though, all rock walls, battlements, and and arrow slots. Dawn looked up as they walked through the entrance and spotted holes in the overhead.

"This place wasn't built by trusting souls, was it?" Dawn asked.

"What makes you say that?" asked Daniel.

"The murder holes in the ceiling are a dead giveaway."

"What are murder-holes?" asked Sam.

Daniel answered, "If the master of the castle didn't care for your looks, guys with no conscience would hide above the entrance, behind those holes. Before the main door would be opened, the gate behind would slam shut, and everyone caught between would be shot through with arrows until they died, which happened fairly quickly since they had no way to fight back."

"Geez," Sam said, "nice folks. Uh, this place is uninhabited, right?"

"Yes, and the last time we were here I checked the portcullis mechanism, it's rusted into immobility."

"And besides," said Dawn, "our modern weapons would make a big difference."

The next morning Dawn and Daniel set to work photographing and translating the chiseled words in the great room of the old building. They both got rather excited by what they found, Daniel because of how it fit with other writings, Dawn because it described vampires and demons, although she didn't mention this to Daniel.

The rest of SG-1 was mostly bored. The colonel dozed off in the sun, figuring any time he could use to catch up on sleep was time well spent. Teal'c occupied himself with patrolling the grounds around the structure, and Sam sat and gazed at the clouds. She was probably working harder than anyone else, for she was fully engaged in her chosen profession: theoretical physics.

No one really noticed the sun setting that evening. Dawn, Daniel, and Samantha were all lost in their respective thoughts and hypothesizes, Jack didn't think to relieve Teal'c of guard duty since he hadn't thought to assign guard duty to begin with, and Teal'c was just being Teal'c. He did what he was trained to do without complaint and didn't stop doing it merely because he'd been at it all day.

So by the time midnight rolled around, the sound of rumbling stomachs got the attention of their owners. So, they all sat down around the campfire and and Daniel passed the

MREs around.

Dawn took a bite and spit it out. "Eww! And here I thought '_Meals Rejected by Ethiopians_' was an exaggeration!"

The others chuckled as they ate. Teal'c looked up suddenly and said, "O'Neill, there is movement to the northwest."

The team put down their rations and stood as one. At first they couldn't see anything, but then four large and remarkably ugly men, and one woman, strolled out of the forest.

"Hey, you guys lost?" one of the strangers asked.

Jack O'Neill stepped out in front and said, "No. You?"

"Nope. We're just out lookin' for a little midnight snack, and by damn, we found it!"

The leader of the pack tried to grab the Colonel and go for his neck, but Jack swung his P-90 around in a vicious arc, cutting open the man's face with the butt of the weapon. He fell to the ground, a large flap of skin flopped against his cheek, fully exposing his teeth and—fangs? His compatriots morphed out. Teal'c shot a hole through one with his staff weapon. Sam shot two others with her P-90 while Daniel shot the last one with his Zat.

It was a considerable surprise to the members of SG-1 when the injuries didn't do anything beside slow 'em down a bit. Now it was the vampires turn and they just used their fists. Jack was flung against a tree and got up slowly, wondering how to defeat these creatures.

The field having been cleared of SG-1, Dawn jumped in front of the vampires. She whipped out her sword and decapitated the leader, who promptly exploded into dust.

Dawn shouted over her shoulder while swinging her sword wildly, "Stake to the heart, decapitation, shoot their necks apart, try Zatting 'em three times, maybe."

Daniel later was heard to say that the whole thing was over in thirty seconds, but Dawn thought it must have been longer than that. Teal'c blew a hole in the neck of a vampire and he dusted satisfactorily. Sam zatted the female vampire three times, and she disappeared. Daniel found a suitable stick and stabbed the third vampire—he missed the heart on his first stab, but found it on the second. Colonel O'Neill grabbed the last one by the belt and swung him around into range of Dawn's blade. Dawn immediately took the vampire's head off. Dawn the Translator walked back to the fire, wiping her blade and dusting off her clothes, along with the rest of the team.

O'Neill looked at Dawn with narrowed eyes and said, "I think you owe us an explanation Summers."

"Well Colonel sir, it's, uh, classified," Dawn said humbly.

"To hell with classified! We have a need to know!"

"Yes, but what you need to know is that those were vampires, and I showed you how to kill them, and I can tell you more about identifying them—but I can't tell you how I know without getting permission first."

"I fully expect to hear more about this later, OK?"

"Sure Colonel Jack."

_--End Flashback--_

To Be Continued


	7. Chapter 7

BtVS & Stargate SG-1

in a crossover Fan Fiction

by Lancer47

AKA

STFarnham

**What Happened Here?**

_See Prologue for Notes and Disclaimer._

**Chapter Six**

"Dawn!" said Daniel, and hugged her tightly.

Dawn practically exploded in tears and buried her face in Daniel's chest, "I missed you so much!"

"It's only been three days, Dawnie, subjectively only a few hours for me."

Dawn wiped her eyes and hugged Daniel.

Sam frowned thoughtfully.

Giles wandered in. He grimaced when he identified the guests. He said, "I see we're in for another lot of sick-making love poems, thankfully in ever more obscure dialects of dead languages."

Colonel O'Neill stood up and said, "Quiet, all of you." Everyone looked at the Colonel. "I understand why you did this," he said sadly, "but you might as well have taken out an ad on a billboard that said 'WE DON'T TRUST SG-1!' I mean, seriously, your actions were a personal insult to all of us."

Teal'c spoke up, "O'Neill, while we waited for you in front of Miss Summers apartment, a man waiting in a parked car watched us for several minutes, and then drove off. Because of Ms. Rosenberg's intrusive spell, I didn't realize his importance until now: that man was Staff Sergeant Houle. I can think of no legitimate reason for him to be surveilling us; he had to have been the NID mole."

Willow looked suitably chastised.

Jack frowned. He looked at Buffy and said, "You need to call General Hammond and start apologizing. If you grovel enough perhaps your punishment will be Constitutional." He looked at Dawn and said, "I want young Miss Summers back at the base. She will be reinstated immediately. The rest of you are not welcome for the immediate future."

There were several sighs from the scooby gang. The Colonel continued, "However, we will still need to consult. It will be off-base. In fact, you don't need to get closer to Colorado Springs than the east side of Cleveland."

Xander said, "So no more trips through the gate?"

"You didn't think of that before you screwed with our heads?"

A pack of thirteen and fourteen year old girls scrambled through the house chasing another girl with a football. Just as Jack was about to answer, there was a loud crash from the vicinity of the back door. Cries of "Holding!" echoed through the house.

Jack tore his attention away from the game and added, "We'll review that on a case-by-case basis. I think we will have to watch the rest of you carefully."

Buffy said, "As much as you'd like to pretend we don't exist, there's a problem. You understand that the reason we tried to disengage from the SGC is simple: NID. We think you have, no, change that to _know_ for certain, that you have little birdies in your nest. Little birdies that squeak back to the sneaky Senator Kinsey and his oily minions."

"Yes," replied Jack, "I am aware of the Kinsey difficulties."

"Difficulties! They kidnapped Faith! They were getting ready to run experiments on her, like she was some kind of, of, lab rat! I guarantee that we will not allow that! Slayers go out and battle evil every night, alone, for years on end, and most of the time an early death is our reward. And this, this – scum – wants to cut us open and see what makes us tick!"

"Well Buffy, you don't go out alone all that much anymore, do you?" asked Jack. He tried to weather Buffy's glare, but he had to look away.

Buffy said, "And no way will I allow Dawn to wander about the galaxy without being escorted by a slayer or two, off-world trips as well as off-base."

Colonel O'Neill looked irritated. He mused for a moment and finally said, "All right then, but I get the final OK on who accompanies her through the gate."

"Agreed."

Willow said, "So Jack, what are you going to do about the NID and Kinsey?"

"Before getting interrupted by your idiotic attempt to wipe our memories, I was putting a plan together on orders from President Hayes. We, along with the FBI, planned to take down that lab in a manner that would have everyone in NID who was involved arrested and in prison. The President is just as tired of these rogue elements as we are."

"Oh," said Buffy, "can we help?"

"As it happens, it wasn't necessary to do anything. About two hours after Faith escaped, the building exploded, killing everyone inside which included a couple of special teams that had been called in for the search. We found the whole thing to be awfully suspicious, there is an investigation and all of you are suspects."

"Shit!" said Buffy, "you can sure feel the love here. You do know that blowing things up isn't really our style."

"Except for the Hemery High Gym, the Sunnydale High School, and all of Sunnydale."

"Yeah, except for those," Buffy sighed. "All right, I see why you have to investigate us."

Colonel O'Neill's cell phone rang, he answered it and found General Hammond on the line.

"Colonel," the General said, "I have on my desk a preliminary report on the explosion of a building housing a previously unknown NID research facility. This came yesterday, but I had no idea why until just now, when my memory recovered, as if by magic. Would you happen to know how that happened?"

"Yes General Hammond, Willow the witch performed an illegal magical intervention, which has now been reversed."

"Hmmm, and the reason for this, uh, intervention?"

"It was precipitated by Faith being captured by the NID."

"I see. I don't suppose I can have them shot."

"Uh, probably not sir. But I have told them they are no longer welcome at the mountain, except for the linguist."

"OK, I'll back your decision for now, until I think of a good punishment."

"So General, what was in the report?"

"It is preliminary only, but it appears that the building blew up by accident."

"Sir?"

"There was a gas leak, and a spark, and –"

"Kaboom!"

"Just so. When will you be back at the facility? You have a scheduled trip to P4X-3728 in forty-eight hours."

"Tonight, sir."

"I'll see you tomorrow morning Jack."

They hung up and Jack looked at the Slayers and the witch and relayed his conversation with the General, including the gas explosion.

"Huh," said Buffy, "I wonder if the Powers are playing with coincidence."

"Getting off their fat butts and giving us a hand, more like."

"You're not out of the woods yet, but it does look better than it did before. Dawn, are you ready to come back to Colorado?"

"Yes Colonel Jack, give me a minute to pack and I'll join you."

Daniel said, as he watched Dawn's rear end, "If she packs in a minute, I'll, well, I don't know what, but it surely would presage the end of time."

"She hasn't unpacked Danny boy," said Willow, "she's been pinin' for you ever since that crystal turned black."

"Oh ," Daniel replied humbly.

--- ---

Three weeks later, the doorbell rang and Buffy found Colonel O'Neill pacing back and forth on the front porch. "Well, to what do we owe the pleasure of your company, o grumpy one?"

"Grumpy one? May I come in? I have some information you may wish to have."

"Sure."

After they were settled into the living room, Jack handed Buffy a bound report. Buffy looked at the SGC logo on the cover, and the diagonal stripe with 'SECRET' written across in red letters. "That," said the Colonel, "is the interim report on the NID lab explosion."

"Why is it secret?" asked Buffy.

"Mostly to protect Faith. We don't want her name bandied about. But this is for your eyes only because of the interim conclusions concerning some of your associates. We're actually starting to believe that not only has every reference to Faith in the NID has been destroyed, but every NID agent who knew who she was died. And after you read about the cause of the blast, well, let's just say I had a "wiggins', to quote someone. There is a strong possibility that—well, you read the report and see what you think."

To Be Continued


	8. Chapter 8

BtVS & Stargate SG-1

in a crossover Fan Fiction

by Lancer47

AKA

STFarnham

**What Happened Here?**

_See Prologue for Notes and Disclaimer._

**Chapter Seven**

_+ Flashback +_

Faith was astonished, distressed, and furious when she woke up and found herself strapped naked to a stainless steel table in the middle of a laboratory. She exclaimed, "Hey! What the hell is this? I demand a lawyer!" The last thing she remembered was getting into her car the night before, but she had suddenly felt sleepy and lay her head on the steering wheel for a moment.

Several men in laboratory coats looked at her as if she were an insect. One said to another, "Good, Subject 18 is awake now." He picked up a small recorder and said into it, "It's now 0015 hours and we are going to start test run one. This is to test the effect of solution Alpha on the test specimen's healing time."

"Hey, I'm right here, you fucking asshole!" exclaimed Faith.

"Should we apply the test-injury before or after the injection?" asked a technician holding a hammer.

"Ah, after, at least on this run-through."

One of the men approached Faith with a hypodermic needle. He signaled to a nurse who swabbed Faith's arm with alcohol. The doctor started to insert the needle – and he suddenly dropped the hypodermic, which shattered on the floor. He spasmed in pain and clutched his left arm and chest. He had just enough time to turn to his colleagues and say, "I think this is a myocardial infarction." Then he fell to the floor. The surprised team immediately started CPR and rushed him out to the infirmary which was just one floor down, temporarily abandoning their experiment.

Faith took advantage of this circumstance to try to rip the leather-wrapped wire straps. They were too strong even for her preternatural strength, but one of the clasps was not completely closed. Her prodigious yank pulled the clasp loose, and she was able to free herself in moments. She ran out the door, stopped and looked around. She let her senses loose and tried to figure out a plan of action. She was annoyed at her nudity, but had no time to search for clothes. She could hear people just out of sight downstairs and briefly thought about going down and kicking ass, but she was so full of rage she'd probably ending up killing a bunch of people, and that was probably not a good place to go anymore. So she went up instead and after one more floor she found the stairs terminated at a roof hatch. She made short work of the lock and moments later found herself standing on the flat roof of a three story building. She looked at the large well-lit parking garage on one side of the building, and turned to run in the opposite direction until she was at the back. She paused just long enough to curse at the roof-gravel which was quite painful to her bare feet, but she was a Slayer so she ignored the pain. Her instinct was shouting at her to get the hell out of there, so she climbed down a convenient drainpipe and took off through the woods.

Faith was about four miles away, wearing some ill-fitting work clothes she had found drying on a clothesline behind someone's house, when a huge explosion tore through the night. She looked back down the road she was walking along and came to the conclusion that the lab where she was a recent guest just blew up.

"Hmmm," she thought, "guess I won't need to come back with an army of slayers after all."

_+ End Flashback +_

Buffy read the forensic engineer's report on the explosion of the the building that held a secret NID lab that was preparing to run horrific experiments on Faith. The section on what they proposed to do to Faith made her more angry than she had been in years. But the cause of the explosion left her feeling worried. She read the tabulated sequence of events:

Every weekday afternoon, for two years, a lab technician was in the habit of going down to the basement and wiring down the safety valve of the hot water heater because the equipment was old and wasn't heating the water hot enough for some of their processes.

The building engineers finally got tired of unwiring the safety valve every morning so they eventually got around to installing a brand new hot water heater.

The new heater specified two safety valves, but the plumber only had one with him, but figured that would be good enough until he could get back the next day with another one, after all, this was a brand new installation and it had one safety valve. What could go wrong in 24 hours?

The next evening, the idiot technician did what he had done every day for the previous two years: wire down the safety valve, utterly unconcerned that it was a brand new heater.

The tank was a vertical tank, it overheated (for as yet undetermined reasons) and since the safety valve was inoperable the tanks bottom welds failed catastrophically. This caused it to take off vertically as if it were a hydraulic rocket. But a six inch diameter gas pipe directly overhead stopped it's upward progress. Calculations showed that the pipe should have been strong enough to withstand the force of the rocketing water heater, but it didn't.

Careful measurements showed that the pipefitter who installed the gas pipes years earlier had cut this pipe just a little short. But rather than cut a new pipe, he decided it was close enough for government work and just cranked down harder on his pipe wrench. It was good enough for twenty years of normal use, but it couldn't withstand the abuse from the overheated water heater.

The gas-feed was equipped with automatic shut off valves that should have shut off the gas as soon as the pressure fell. But, one of the steel trusses that supported the first floor had an imperceptible weld fault. Several hours earlier, one of the angled braces just fell off. It fell a short distance and got wedged into the automatic gas pressure relief safety valve, thus disabling another safety feature.

All of the electrical equipment in the basement was installed in explosion-proof boxes. But the contact panel for the elevators had been inadvertently left uncovered by the elevator maintenance crew which had been on-site the day before.

Because the elevator equipment was in the elevator machine room, it still should have been protected from the leaking gas. But the sweeper seal on the bottom of the access door had been unaccountably forgotten when the door was installed, and nobody had noticed in the intervening years.

When the pipe broke, gas started leaking until the entire basement was filled with a volatile mixture of fuel and air. Then it seeped under the door to the machine room, and finally, when someone pressed the elevator call button, the gas exploded. Analysis showed that the mixture of gas to air was nearly perfect for the maximum possible destruction; the explosion pushed all three floors straight up, then the entire structure collapsed into the basement, killing everyone inside.

Buffy looked up and saw Jack gazing at her. "Uh, that's quite a chain of coincidental things, isn't it?"

"Yes Ms. Summers," said Colonel O'Neill, "and Carter isn't sure she's buying it. She thinks someone may have used magic to influence the chain of events."

"But who could do such a thing? Oh, stupid question. But Willow wouldn't do that!"

"Wouldn't she? To protect the Slayers? We think Willow would do anything she thought was necessary, especially after her little attempt to change our memories."

"Impossible! You don't seem to understand that whatever a Wiccan Witch does is returned three times. That's why witches don't go around robbing, assaulting, and murdering people. They believe in doing all good, all the time. So it's gotta be someone else."

"But who else has the kind of power it takes to do this?" O'Neill asked, exasperated. "I suppose it could be an Ascended Being, but they have rules against that kind of stuff. The Asgard? Very doubtful, along with the Nox, the Furlings, and any other other extra-terrestrial race you'd care to mention."

"Well," said Buffy, "we always say that Willow is one of the most powerful witches in the world. Even if she is the top witch, there are others whose powers are close enough. And one other thing, these Ascended of yours are similar to what we refer to as the Powers That Be – for all we know they're the same thing. Now it's true that none of those guys interfere with us _as a rule_, but, they have been known to make exceptions. And when the Powers make changes, they usually look just like a series of coincidences – just like this." Buffy waved the report in her hands.

"Yeah yeah," agreed the Colonel, "I know and we're investigating in many directions. But I want you to sound out Willow, ask her, see what she says, then get back to me."

"You want to enlist me as a spy? Should we negotiate a price? Or do you expect me to accept whatever silver you have to offer?"

The Colonel glared at her and said, "No, no, I don't want you to spy on her, just talk to her!"

"Well, I'll think about it."

O'Neill said, "Oh, and Carter told me to tell you about coincidence and disastrous accidents. It seems that sequences like this actually do happen in reality, so we still can't rule out accident, yet. In fact, we may not ever be able to prove this wasn't an accident."

"I thought Carter was the one brought up the possibility of magic?"

"Yes, but she cautions that it's just a possibility. She wants us to keep an open mind."

"OK, no prob. Now go."

--- ---

Back at Stargate Command's conference table under Cheyenne Mountain, SG-1 conferred with General Hammond and Major Benson from the Security Section. The Major said, "We arrested Staff Sergeant Houle, per your orders General, and interrogated him throughout the night. With the help of Major Carter's lie detector, we found that he was an agent of the NID, but he was not observing SG-1, he had been assigned to watch Dawn Summers' apartment. Apparently they were not yet aware that she had moved out. He didn't know why he was watching, and he didn't know there was anything special about Miss Summers' sister, although he was watching out for her and any visitors. His assignment was to watch and report, nothing else. He traded off with a number of other NID agents, some undercover and some open."

Colonel O'Neill asked, "Do we have more security around Miss Summers now? I'd hate to have her kidnapped from under our noses."

"Yes sir. Two man teams, eight hour shifts, around the clock."

"Good. I wonder why they were curious about Dawn?"

Major Carter asked, "Are any of the Slayers in town? As good as our Security teams are, redundant protection can only help."

"Yeah, I think there are two rooming with her," said Dr. Jackson, "I don't see how the NID could get through to her now." He paused and added, "Damn it! I just jinxed her, didn't I?"

"Now now Daniel," said Colonel Carter, "you're giving this supernatural stuff too much credit – there's no such thing as jinxing. Although we could increase the security to three man teams, just to be safe."

Teal'c looked at Sam with an unreadable expression, unreadable except to his team members.

Sam continues, "Willow, Thor, and I have been able to fit most of Slayers and magic into physics, you see," she was getting enthusiastic now, "to begin with, string theory accounts for most it, and we just have to add two more dimensions to the twenty-one we've hypothesized already to ..."

"CARTER!" said O'Neil holding his head in his hands, "later, please. Twenty three freaking dimensions – oh my aching head!"

" ... but there's no such thing as jinxing," she repeated mulishly, "sir."

"OK, but why does the NID have any interest in Dawn? She's fully human, right? The normal one. Well, as normal as one of that group can be, anyway. Could it be just because she's related to Buffy Summers? They want her as a control subject?" asked Daniel, who looked angry and ill at the same time.

Everybody paused in thought. Finally, Major Benson hesitantly asked, "Where was this Faith when she was kidnapped? And how did the NID do it? I mean, Faith is pretty darn dangerous."

Carter flipped through her paperwork and said, "Here it is, she was here, in Colorado Springs. It says her vehicle was booby trapped with a gas knockout system. A very fast-acting one too."

"But Colonel, doesn't she drive a motorcycle?"

"Yeah, a two-year old Harley-Davidson Sportster. Entirely black of course."

"So who's car was it?"

"Here, it was a Honda Accord, owned by, let's see, Dawn Summers!"

"Hmmm, maybe we should make Dawn's security four-man teams."

"If for no other reason, just to make sure we capture the NID agents alive."

"You might be underestimating the Slayers, O'Neill, I think they have more self-control than that."

"I hope you're right Teal'c buddy, but if not, we could be in a world of hurt," said O'Neill.

"No O'Neill, not us, the NID," said Teal'c.

The Colonel chuckled, "Well, yeah."

General Hammond, who had been listening carefully to the discussion, said, "It's still Willow Rosenberg who is our biggest worry. After all, she did try to end the world once."

"WHAT!" exclaimed Carter, "when? How? Why didn't I know that?"

Colonel O'Neill said, "You didn't really need to know, we've tried to keep some of the more incendiary information about this little gang quiet. It seems that back when there was a Sunnydale, her lover was shot dead in front of her and she went a little crazy. We've been assured that it can't happen again." He didn't look particularly confident.

"Which?" asked Carter, "that she couldn't lose another partner or that she won't try to end the world?"

Hammond replied, "The latter, of course. We've been assured that she has had training and her therapy has advanced to the point where her self-control is highly reliable."

"By who?"

"By who what?"

"Who is doing all this assuring? What is their training and experience in this sort of thing?"

"Oh, by a coven of witches in Westbury, England."

"Now that makes me feel all warm inside, a self-styled coven of," Carter held her fingers up in an ironic air-quote fashion, "self-styled '_witches_' with no other qualifications have said it is so, so it must be true!"

"Actually," said General Hammond, "there doesn't appear to be anyone else who is more qualified. I'll admit, it looks shaky, but we've had other specialists interview everyone involved, and the conclusions hold up. On the other hand, what could anyone do if they're wrong?"

TBC

--- ---

_Author's Notes:_

_The disaster I describe is taken from a forensic engineering analysis of a building in New York City that blew up many years ago (I think it was in the sixties). It happened as described up to and including step 6, except it wasn't a secret NID laboratory, it was a photo lab. (This was back in the Jurassic Era, when they had to use light-sensitive film to take pictures). In the real incident, there were no automatic pressure-sensitive gas valves, and the spark that set off the blast could have come from any of hundreds of sources. The guy whose job it was to wire down the safety valve every morning couldn't explain why he wired down the new one because he didn't survive. _

--- ---


	9. Chapter 9

BtVS & Stargate SG-1

in a crossover Fan Fiction

by Lancer47

AKA

STFarnham

**What Happened Here?**

_See Prologue for Notes and Disclaimer._

**Chapter Eight**

Senator Kinsey put his phone down, poured himself a single malt whiskey, and sat on his leather couch with a heavy sigh. He was tired after a long day of influencing people. It was hard work, made all the harder when when people resisted his will. He reached for the remote and flipped on the TV. A large wall panel automatically retracted and the large plasma display lit up. As he took a sip of his expensive whiskey, he noticed, out of the corner of his eye, someone sitting across from the coffee table. He dropped the glass and coughed heavily as he had sucked some alcohol down his windpipe. After he stopped coughing, he looked up and shouted, "How the hell did you get in here!"

"Hi Senator," the young woman said brightly, "how I got here is not really important. What is important is the fact that I did get here, unnoticed by anyone in all of the District or Virginia for that matter."

"We're surrounded by Secret Service, they'll be in here very quickly."

"Well, no, it seems that they are all suffering from extreme daydreaming."

"What? Don't you fuck with me little girl! Do you know who I am?"

"Of course. You're Senator Kinsey, the great jackass. I mean seriously, a bigger jackass than you could hardly exist."

Kinsey forced himself to sit back and relax, or at least appear to relax and listen. He was worried by her apparent self-confidence.

"For now, no one can get in this room, or even imagine that they would need to get in. No one can see in, and no one can see out. You could get out if you were able to walk over to the door, but you can't get up from the couch until I allow it. The how of all this doesn't matter, I just need you to listen to me, and answer a few questions, and then I'll leave. It will be as if I were never here in the first place."

"Who are you?"

"Willow Rosenberg. I see by your reaction that you have heard of me. Are you scared of me? Why? Have I ever done anything to hurt you? Or maybe, just maybe, you're afraid because of things that you did. Could that be right? No? Perhaps you're afraid because of something you tried and failed to do. Ahhh, that's it, isn't it?"

"Me?" he squeaked out, "I, I'm a United States Senator. Everything I do is, by definition, aboveboard. I'm a good guy, really, just ask my constituency."

Willow laughed softly. "Riiight. You are aware, are you not, that most people put politicians, and especially Senators, either at or very near the bottom of their list, trust-wise. And you, Senator Kinsey, are quite possibly one of the most corrupt, perhaps **the** most corrupt, Senator in office. You're pure dirt Kinsey, and everyone knows it. Why do you think the President so rarely returns your call?"

"What, what do you want?"

"Well that's a good question. Basically, what I want is for you to stop being such an ass..."

"But, wait, I'm not a bad guy! I'm one of the good guys! I'm a patriot! I'm trying to preserve America for our children!"

"You're sure doing a spectacularly bad of it, Senator. Good guys don't go around having genuine heroes kidnapped just to satisfy their curiosity. Good guys are guided by the greater good, not by their desire for greater power. Good guys do not, under any circumstances, condone torture. I know good guys, and you Senator Kinsey, are not a good guy."

Kinsey kind of blinked at this. He sat for a moment then asked, "All right, but my question still stands, what are you going to do?"

"I don't know yet. I have several options. First know this, I talked to Faith about what your minions in the NID were going to do ..."

"The NID is a separate organization, I have nothing to do with them."

"Senator," Willow said dolefully, "don't you realize that you can't get on my good side by lying to me?"

"I'M NOT LYING!" he shouted fearfully, "really the NID doesn't like me. They even tried to have me killed!"

"Yes, but they didn't, more's the pity, instead you made a deal with them for your worthless life. And ever since then, you talk to them, give them suggestions, right?"

"Well, you know, talk is cheap. Sure I talk to a lot of people during my workday, but what they do with it is another matter entirely..."

"Senator..."

"All right all right, sure I talk, make suggestions, and yes, they often follow my lead. But, they are ..."

"Shut up," Willow said very softly, and the Senator's mouth closed with a snap. "Now, Faith told me that your ethics-free researchers referred to her as 'Subject 18'. This worries me, what happened to the previous seventeen, and where are they now?"

Kinsey experimentally moved his jaw around and found he could speak again. "I don't know anything about..." His jaw snapped shut again, this time catching the tip of his tongue on a tooth.

Willow shook her finger at him, "Uh uh! You're doing it again, don't lie to me!"

He found he could talk again. He felt the tip of his tongue against his lips, it was really starting to hurt where he had bit it, even though it was just a tiny little piece at the tip. He said, "All right, you win. National Security be dammed! I'll tell you all! The previous seventeen are all dead, OK? They weren't anyone you know, or have anything to do with your Slayers and Watchers, they were just in the wrong place at the wrong time and gave their lives, if unwillingly, for their country."

"You make me sick."

"IT HAS TO BE DONE! Don't you realize this? Someone has to keep us safe..."

"And you elected yourself for the job. Not realizing that this is a democracy and you don't have the right to elect yourself. OK, here's the next question, Why were you interested in Dawn Summers?'

"Who?" seeing Willow's look he quickly added, "oh, the sister of the Slayer. Well, uh, we didn't really need her for experimentation, just as a control subject plus we thought we'd put her to work translating some documents for us, I mean the country. More useful than working at the S G fucking C."

"You know what I think Senator?"

"No, what do you think?" he replied heavily.

"I think it's time for you to resign from government service – you know the drill – so you can spend time with your family. Whattaya say? Deal? Tomorrow morning, anytime before lunch, DC Time, you gather some reporters around and announce you are are resigning effective immediately."

"But, but, I have deals in the works, I have to be in the Senate..."

"No Senator, you really don't have to be in the Senate. Your family, what there is of it, is more important! If you don't like it, I will arrange for your demise. I don't care to do that sort of thing, but if you want me to, I will."

"No, no, you don't have to do that, I'll, I'll, resign tomorrow morning." He put his head down in defeat.

And Senator, I don't want you trying to keep your influence, I want you to renounce all political ties."

Willow could see a tear roll down the Senator's cheek. She smiled, and left.

--- ---

"So that's it?" asked Buffy, "he tried to kidnap Dawn, did kidnap Faith and was going to torture her Nazi-style, has been responsible for a large number of deaths and a huge amount of time-wasting nonsense to undo his actions, and his punishment is that he resigns with his pension and benefits?"

"Yeah, I know," said Willow, "I'd really prefer to skin him alive, but been there, done that, don't like sequels." She paused a moment, then added, "I know! Why don't you shove a wooden stake in his black heart? That'd stop him, sure!"

"OK Will, you've made your point, we're not murderers. But still, couldn't we get him charged with something?"

"Sure, you want to testify about why he wanted Faith experimented on? Even if you don't testify about being the Senior Slayer, would you be able to answer all his lawyer's questions? Under oath? You know whatever lawyer he hires will do whatever he has to to win, and we could all end up outed."

"Hmm, that doesn't actually sound too good. Well, let's think on it, see if we can think of something."

Giles said, "Of course, there is yet another problem."

"Of course there is."

Giles frowned briefly at Buffy. "The fact of the matter is that Senator Kinsey was right about one thing: the NID is independent of the Senator. To complicate matters, there is apparently a legitimate side to this organization. The illegal acts attributed to the NID are supposedly due to an illegal offshoot. Now, the truth is not obvious, but it's more than just Kinsey."

Everyone looked glum. But then Willow brightened up and said, "But most of the bad guys were killed in the building explosion!"

"So tell us Will, were you responsible for blowing up that building?"

"Me?! How could you suspect me?"

"Because you could have done it."

"Maybe she did it at the behest of the Powers That Be. That would negate the nasty side affects, wouldn't it?"

"I think that it was fate."

"I thought it was the Powers."

"Wasn't it an accident?"

"So Will, which was it?"

"Wouldn't you like to know?" she replied with a cryptic smile.

The End


End file.
